March News and 2014/15 Registration

March certainly did come in like a lion with icy, cold temperatures and a wind chill that made me want to hide in my house! What a relief to be looking at double digit temperatures on the plus side of 0 for the upcoming days!

It’s hard to believe we are already almost halfway through March. Actually, this is Week 24 of our lesson year which means we only have 10 more lessons to go before summer break is here! And as one year closes, I am always thinking about the one upcoming. So here is a quick look ahead for the next several weeks.

SPRING BREAK
There will be no lessons during Spring Break, March 31-April 6. Lessons will resume on April 7th and I’ll have a brand new practice incentive cooked up for you by then! 😉 I think we will have a bit of fun with it as it brings our focus towards the upcoming Spring Recital. Let’s just say it’s going to “rock”!

SPRING RECITAL
Our Spring Recital is scheduled for Friday, May 9th, at 6:30pm in the main auditorium of First Church of the Nazarene. First Church is planning some big renovations, so there is a small possibility that they could begin around this time. We may have to be flexible in the when and where of our recital, but I will keep you posted! In the meantime, we will plan on this and mark our calendars! 😉 UPDATE: the church renovations have been officially scheduled for late May through end of June so our May 9th recital is a GO!

2014/15 SCHEDULE AND REGISTRATION
I am currently working on the schedule for next year and hope to have it up by Spring Break so that we can begin re-registration and new registration for the fall when we return from Spring Break. Next year my daughter enters grade 10 and over the last couple of week’s she had an interview and acceptance at Strathcona Christian Academy in Sherwood Park. She is very excited, but it does mean that I will likely be driving her both to and from school as there is no bus from Edmonton to transport her there. This will certainly impact what I can or cannot add to my schedule for next year and will limit the number of new classes or private lessons that I can add into the schedule for next year.

APRIL MASTER CLASS
There will be another master class in April, during the week immediately following Easter Monday. More information will come out after Spring Break.

YEAR END
I will be away during the last week of May. I actually have a conference in Las Vegas! We will still get all 34 weeks in the schedule, though, and are set to finish up by or slightly before June 12.

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Fun with the Practice Elves!

Well, all the practice elves found a home this week. Have you been having some fun with your elf yet or are you waiting until December 1st to officially start? Or maybe you feel like you don’t know where to begin and are looking for some ideas? Here are some of my suggestions for you:

You can move the elf from piece to piece each night and just have your child start there piano practice where the elf is. This will ensure there is a little variety each day in there practice. Wherever the elf is will be where their practice begins, then they would continue as they normally would

You can put the elf on a piece they’ve never seen before or played from their book and then they would have to begin their practice by sight-reading that piece.

The elf could be placed on a piece of music with special instructions to call a grandparent or aunt or uncle and play the piece over the phone for them. Or it could have special instructions for how many times to play the piece that day (ie “Play this piece 3 times at 7:45am and then again at 4pm) Or the elf could simply be encouraging saying something like, “You’re awesome!”
For a little help and creativity with these ideas, try printing off some speech bubbles: http://www.bing.com/images/search?q=speech+bubble+prinouts&qpvt=speech+bubble+prinouts&FORM=IGRE

If you think that the Christmas piece is the one piece in particular that needs the help then use the elf and the speech bubbles to assign a new and different way to practice it each day (ie 4 times slow like a turtle, play over phone for 3 friends, play it with your eyes closed once after 3 times through, etc, etc, etc)

So, have you named your elf and begun the fun…if so, I’d love to hear about it! Share you elf’s name and post any pictures of it’s shenanigans to our facebook page so we can all enjoy the fun and creativity!